TODAY’s Lessons from the Garden consideration is just that, a lesson from the garden!
“Gardens Just Don’t Happen’ – jlg
LOVING trees as I do, we find a fitting metaphor and reflection on spiritual growth as a journey—one that moves through stages of recognizing personal need and inadequacy, then finding deeper life and sufficiency in Christ. I have a pithy little book on the shelf titled, The Things Trees Know by Douglas Wood, containing short wisdoms and truth axioms. The first one saying:
“Reach down as well as up,
No Roots, no branches”
Psalm 1:1-3
Spring has arrived and I’m taking great joy watching several of backyard trees come to life after a Fall pruning and winter rest. As we will see in today’s None But The Hungry Heart reading, trees nurtured over time will show that even our own shortcomings aren’t a calamity—but needful for toward transformation. In short, we must recognize our need before we can be supplied; an invaluable Lesson from the Garden.
Well, with that introduction, here’s today’s Morning Greeting from NBTHH #2-3 – Need, Then Supply
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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2-3. Need, Then Supply
“Not as though I had already attained. . . but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also l am apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).
The heavenly Husbandman develops a believer on the same principle that He does a tree: planting, growth, consolidation, rest, and then more growth. There are stages. We are shown our sin and need-self. Then we hunger for freedom and life-Christ. This is a progression. At first, we consider the shocking revelation of self the greatest of calamities; later, we realize that it is the pathway to the blessed revelation of our life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Before we can take on the likeness of the Lord Jesus, we must see ourselves and know how we look; we must be brought into the place where we are not dismayed nor cast down when we discover how little we are conformed to His image. It is only as we see our need, that we can be supplied.” -C.McI.
“It does us no good, but only discourages us if we see our failures and shortages and do not behold the beauty of Christ, and apprehend and experience our sufficiency in Him. On the other hand, if we see only what we are in Him and do not discern our defects; if we do not apprehend that which must be appropriated and worked out in us; if we do not see all that must be put off, and that Christ must be put on in actual control and manifestation, we become self-satisfied and puffed up-we lose our invaluable ‘need.’” -C.McI.
“I certainly do count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8, Wms.).
